


Once Was Amell

by pettiot



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Homophobia, M/M, Sexuality, class themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-02
Updated: 2013-05-02
Packaged: 2021-02-28 02:49:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22526593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pettiot/pseuds/pettiot
Summary: Leandra walks in on Hawke and Fenris making love.
Relationships: Hawke/Fenris
Kudos: 3





	Once Was Amell

Leandra's first thought is: not the elf.

Then she does not think, as she closes the door quietly, only a confused tangle of emotion. Anger, at seeing her son on his knees. For the elf. Shame, at her instant preconception; did she not enjoy Malcolm's mouth between her legs in that same way? Was Malcolm any lesser to allow her use of his mouth? This was a thing one did for their better; she remembers through a space of years, her own childish excitement at kissing Malcolm's prick, teasing with tongue, excitement strangely more intimate than sex -- with mouths, an act that could only be undertaken for pleasure -- disappearing rapidly into embarrassment when she realised it could not be as she imagined, that she would drool and sputter and the bitterness of his spend would never taste like a storybook ending, the look in his eyes as he gazed down at her invariably leaving her feeling used. Emotions which would be shrouded, after, in a haze of Malcolm's firm touch, the loving hand laden with the excitement of her rebellion with a handsome apostate, broad and strong and deep of voice in a way no Kirkwall noble's son had proved to be. Perhaps if she had been more willing to do that for Malcolm in those brief hazy days of romantic passion, she would not have fallen pregnant and into disgrace--

Leandra moves, sedate of pace, across the landing. Ghost in her own house, ghost of memory. Closes the door to her own room, two doors and a flight of stairs now between her and that elf and her son. It is not far enough. It is too far. She sees Garrett's broad back and the jaw stretched wide, the working throat and leaking eyes, and rushes to her pot, stomach clenched, mouth full of liquid, but nothing comes but clenching, like early birthing pain, the same pain she felt when Carver died, when Bethany did not come home. She cannot spit. A handkerchief, pressed politely, to her lips. She sees herself in a mirror whose frame had been commissioned especially for her on her thirteenth birthday, when she first blooded as a woman, blossoming with half-budded roses at each corner and a touch of pink at the centres. An old woman looks back at her, pale of face, white lips, soft throat.

It is hard to remember Malcolm's dutiful care for her and their family. Hard to remember her passion being so deep, quick and gone. All she is left with is knowledge of so many sacrifices to have Malcolm, of no class, standing or acceptable profession, the constant fugivitus, and Malcolm is gone. What worth her trade of her life, upbringing, blossoming rose but another flower of blood on her bedsheets, a few memories, dust and rubble and two dead children, and a son who bends knee and back to an elf who has nothing.

Leandra cries, messily, not quite sure why. She sinks to her bed. A fit of hysterics, much indulged, as Malcolm never indulged and as her father and mother and even Gamlen and Cousin Damion knew to allow her: a noble, title-less woman's power to sway the minds of husbands and fathers and brothers in use of emotional cudgel. Garrett is a fool, no matter what, he is her son, prone to hysterics and humour and foolish decisions, a fool in exactly the same ways she was a fool, thinking passion will be worth it. She would not make the same trade again.

Then the sorrow and the tears place themselves, and Leandra knows herself for grieving. For whom she does not know. Too many are dead, and Garrett is not, and he kneels on the backs of the dead and pays a whore's service to an elf.

Leandra indulges. Lets the hysteria build with greater imaginings of horror. But even that wears thin, her imagined horrors ridiculous instead of revolting, more about her than her son. She slows and stops, her cheeks feel as if the lines will maze and crack if she smiles. She breathes, hollow, unthinking, until the sun comes to set, and she must rise to close her own curtains because her son will not employ more than the barest of servants.

Then she does smile, and it hurts, shivers and fits which long to become laughter, but which will become tears again if she lets it. Her oh so very capable son.

Just as slowly, reasonable thought returns. Images of what she saw, of the elf's hands -- No. Fenris, she must both think and say. Fenris, because her son goes to knee for him. She sees Fenris' hands, clenched tight around the ends of the armchair -- sees her grandfather sitting in the same chair, Gamlen tousle-haired and laughing and on his knee. The juxtaposed images a blasphemy. The same blasphemy as running away with an apostate? Fenris' hands. The long white patterned scars across the backs of them. The nakedness, though no more of him is exposed than his hands and his feet and the part which her son wraps himself around. Because Fenris was not wearing his gauntlets, so he could touch her son gently, and Leandra must not let herself see that, in particular. Not hers to see, or even imagine, such vulnerability. The wide green eyes which met hers across the room for a barest instant, the hollow, yearning ache in them, a desperation which could have drowned her. Alien eyes. Elven eyes.

A queer shiver in her lungs, around her heart again, at this harsh light cast suddenly upon decades of jests and stories and little horrified, selfserving whispers around Kirkwall, of which nobleman favoured which elven servant, which housemaid sent into disgrace back to the Alienage, jeers between the noble sons of Kirkwall houses about the new elven girl, or boy, at the Blooming Rose; what certain elves would do for much less a coin if you came upon them in numbers at night in the streets of Lowtown. The noble daughters would gasp and laugh and writhe in excited shock at the thought, how can the sons of Hightown bear the stench. Remember Cousin Revka, laughing and bright, I would kill myself if an elf touched me like that.

Did they ever think of elven lovers for themselves, the girl she used to be, elven men taken and used in the same way? Leandra cannot remember. They must have, for Revka to have jested so. Realisation, that Leandra has never seen an elven man of potent age in Hightown. Ever. Only the boys, only the aged, while lithe nubile females abounded. Only Fenris.

For this, Fenris has always struck her as terrifying and strange. For the sword he carries in defiance of reprisal, his relative potency, the inevitability in his words. More so than his alarmingly Tevinter courtesies, more than the angry voice and likely hand he raises to her son when they argue in the main hall. The all too familiar apologies which follow, and no change of behaviour. Fenris will hurt Garrett, she knows this, because of what he is as much as who he is. Garrett, Leandra fears, will risk that; and will likely bear it, too. Her son is not a delicate flower.

But Leandra also knows the awkward laugh that Garrett will raise in Fenris on occasion, the generosity of emotion that Fenris raises in Garrett. For this, Fenris is alarming, so much more than for the sickening marks on his skin, than the undeniable elven blood.

This is both her fault, and not her fault. It has always been there for her to know it, without seeing. Leandra does not wish others to talk about her son, to snicker in shadows, but that is Hightown. Leandra can almost, if she distances herself, if she tries, accommodate the image of Garrett bending for another man in the future she has tried to guide him to build, a quirk which has a place in Hightown marriages, a bit of fun on the side. If only it had been any other--

Imagine Sebastian Vael in Fenris' place, blue eyes regarding Garrett's bowed head with fondness. The future of the Starkhaven son would bolster her son's position, with his connections in the Chantry, or the path he might take to Starkhaven. Hightown would gossip, but in jealousy, envy; a connection easily glossed over with the cleaning brush of close friends, in age and influence, a connection still embraced and carefully managed by the right kind of wife to Garrett, in acknowledgement of what favours it brings.

Or even, if Leandra stretches her imagination, Varric Tethras, wealth and connection beyond expectation, a merchant, true, but living in Lowtown by choice and eccentricity, not necessity. They would be laughed at, ridiculed, Varric and Garrett, but Leandra remembers Garrett's easy laughter and Varric's expansive story telling, the admiration and affection in Varric's eyes. in good humour they would make of themselves an easy joke for Hightown, taming the laughter to higher purpose. Anything but Fenris' sucking desperation, the violent intent. Leandra remembers Varric's small kindnesses and generous heart in their year in Hightown, knows that he enabled their return to position. Varric, too, as head of his household would respect the need to continue the family line, that sacrifices must be made---

At least it is not the apostate.

Leandra shies back from that leap, a horse once harmed struck shy. No, if there is one light in this, it is that Garrett has not brought Anders into her house, to haunt her with his abstract charity and Malcolm's lurking ghost.

Bodahn knocks gently at her door. The sky is dark, and Leandra moves slowly to bid him enter, but her mind is spinning. She is a survivor, she has sacrificed everything and knows what that means; she is, if anything, as much an expert at salvage as is Garrett Hawke.

'Lady Leandra -- dinner is to be served shortly. Your brother has arrived and been seated.'

A pale blur looks back at her from the mirror, eyes too shadowed for clarity.

'Thank you,' Leandra says.

* * *

Somewhat of a comfortable jest between them, that Garrett has the better hearing despite the preconception of elven ears. So it is Garrett who lets his hand fall from Fenris' first, who takes the step back to put a meaningful distance between their bodies. Fenris looks down, and now they are only comrades bidding each other farewell in the anteroom, Serah Fenris the Mercenary with whom Hawke once took work. In better days, Garrett appends to the fabrication, mirthfully.

In truth, Garrett is beyond grateful for the comfort wealth and position brings; with Bethany's passing, beyond grateful that he has had something of security and comfort to return to his mother. But he is not uncritical of what he surrenders to claim that right. The nobles in Hightown have forgotten their status bloomed on the blood of those their ancestors killed; for Garrett, that blood is close enough he still must wash it from his beard and know that all nobility is what grew from a compost of barbarism.

Leandra moves as she has always done, with stately grace; bestows a smile on Garrett. It surprises him that she moves towards them rather than straight to the dining room. Fenris drops into a rigid bow as Leandra rests her hand on Garrett's arm.

'Will your companion not be joining us?'

Garrett is not entirely inexperienced in nuance. His mother has only ever referred to Fenris as his elven friend. She gives no suspicious pause before the change of terminology.

'Ears, mouth...' Garrett peers at Fenris as if shortsighted, then affects surprise. 'Why, Mother! Look at that! You could ask him yourself.'

'Hawke,' Fenris growls, embarrassed; nearly simultaneous with Leandra's curt, 'Your sarcasm is unbecoming to all, Garrett.'

Startled, Leandra and Fenris swap glances as if by accident. Fenris looks down on the instant. A flush takes Leandra's cheeks.

Garrett is not unaware of any of this.

A hesitation, then, 'Serah Fenris...'

Fenris descends into a second, stiff bow. 'Domina. Apologies, but I must take my leave. I have, uh, a prior engagement--'

'Yes, with a bottle of wine, who'll cry no tears if you fail to arrive. Come, Fenris. Stay. Eat. Or better yet, go get your wine and bring it back to share.' Heat blooms in the pit of Garrett's stomach, fever as if about to fight. Laughter inappropriate stifled in his throat. He bounces on his toes, helpless to the emotion. Stay. Eat. Let us be family. The clouds are gone from her eyes.

Fenris stills, in counterpoint to Garrett's sudden excess of exuberance. His breath catches. As if he will speak. Once, twice, then a headshake as if waking from a dream, and he is gone.

Garrett crashes, inwardly, looking at the blackness beyond the warm lit frame of the open door, not even Fenris' grey hair catching the lamplight. Ridiculous. Garrett is conscious of his mother's hand squeezing his arm. Attempt to comfort. Inexplicable disappointment. If he were of purer mind, likely he would withhold all favours for the insult.

After that, Garrett is in no fit state to handle Gamlen's conversation, even the fresh baked bread and creamy butter as dough to Garrett's tongue. Garrett has a strange fond place in his heart for Gamlen. Unapologetic Gamlen, who, with something quite unlike a nobleman's arrogance yet sourced in that undeniable sense of self, takes full responsibility for the wealth he lost through sheer idiocy. Gamlen makes no whining excuses for unfair interest rates and loan sharks and they took advantage, they tricked me. Gamlen gambled and lost, states and accepts that in a way Leandra cannot.

Having lived with his uncle, Garrett knows Gamlen found more happiness in his deserved squalor than Leandra has in regaining Hightown on the coattails of her murderous barbarian son. Gamlen firmly and vocally scorned every one of his crude Lowtown friends for being crude and Lowtown and worthless enough to be his friends; every one of them would jeer and give it back. Garrett found it easier to join in with them, a similar banter to that of Ferelden farmers or Meeran's bastard mercenaries, than to sit it out with Mother and Bethany in one of the bedrooms, trying to avoid the knowledge of many raucous drunk males in the other room. Gamlen's regular, somewhat fraught wallop games, the cigars shared on the slum steps, a conspiracy between uncle and nephew in their carefully never mentioned ventures to the Blooming Rose. You're a bit of a cunt, Garrett told his uncle once, to which Gamlen only laughed, more crude than bitter; No one ever said we've got to live so everyone likes us, boy. Tell your mother I said that.

No one ever touched Bethany, not for the breasts or the magic. Meeran never sold them out. Gamlen's cigar smoking friends kept out an eye, the wallop competitors struck up matches blocking the slum streets when Templars came prowling, and Leandra still spoke only about what was lost, instead of what they had. Who was Gamlen, raw and angry and accepting, who refused Garrett's offer of a suite in the reclaimed Hightown mansion. The offer seemed to offend Gamlen more than Garrett would have thought possible. You earned that life, you bloody deal with it. Leave me to mine.

Never asking for an ounce of forgiveness, Gamlen is still a bit of a cunt, and he is hard to take tonight. Doesn't slurp his soup, or crumble his bread, but Gamlen goads, all the time. Exasperated, Leandra reprimands her brother constantly before half the first course is done, and Garrett watches them, exhausted and dazed after Fenris...evaporated. Seeing them hurts powerfully and strong, and he thinks suddenly of Bethany and Carver.

Leandra and Gamlen had an older brother, too, once. Cousin, really, but one they seemed to love like a brother: Damion Amell, who could have been Viscount, who gambled everything for a return to fortune and favour. Who failed.

I am an Amell, as much as I am a Hawke. The thought rings like a bell, shivering and pure.

'---thank the sodding Maker that bloody elf of yours has no eye for dogflesh. Finally won back the sovereign off him that I owed. Relieved about that, I tell you. Never guess what an elf'll do to reclaim a debt. Certainly not that elf.' Gamlen reached for the watered wine. 'Did you hear, he went to Meeran for a contract, and even sodding Meeran wouldn't have him on half price. Leave the nutters to Hawke to handle, Meeran says--'

'You should not call him that, Gamlen.'

Quietly, firmly. The firmness being the unexpected element, no trace of sisterly/motherly exasperation or wheedling, no trace of blame. Only a statement, unarguable. You should not call him that. Garrett looks at his mother in surprise, Gamlen wearing an identical expression.

'What, "sodding Meeran"? Void, Leandra, the captain of Kirkwall's largest mercenary gang can defend himself.'

In the same, steady tone. Big sister Leandra cuts through Gamlen's groaning. 'Serah Fenris.'

Garrett catches Gamlen's bemused eye, shrugs broadly. Realisation dawns on Gamlen's face, so obviously Garrett does not wonder how it is such a large fortune could have been lost at the tables.

'What, Hawke's sodding elf?'

'Hold on,' Garrett surprises himself with the interjection. 'He's not my sodding anything.'

'Give that one up, boy, it's spread wider than your legs. Over half of Lowtown, that is. Should shut up your talkative pirate bitch if you want your secrets kept.'

'She's not my pirate bitch either, uncle.'

'Can we please not have this language at my table?'

'At least with an elf you got a fair guess at which one's the girl; wouldn't have that with your pirate. Maker, Damion was a damned fool for elves before he up and adventured himself to death. Mother put up with it just for the lack of bastards out of it all, remember, Leandra? She used to say, she'd see the whole city brought down before there'll be a bastard under the Amell roof-- You're lucky Leandra dragged that poor huge fool to a Chantry before squeezing you out.'

Leandra rises like a tide. 'Enough.'

'"Honestly, Gamlen,"' both Garrett and Gamlen echo, in anticipated mimicry, but there is something of ice and death in Leandra's eyes that silences them good as a spell.

I am an Amell, Garrett thinks, again, and this time the thudding of his heart feels like triumph.

Bodahn steps into the breach. The soup plates are collected, the silence and Garrett's queer glee thickens, broken only on Bodahn's return with the platter of roasted meats and vegetables. Garrett finds himself pressed to serve, pressed to speak, but the words feel unpredictably hard to come by.

After they all sit again, he tries, 'I would have told you eventually, Mother.'

'Hrrr,' Gamlen smothers the leer. 'What makes you think this one's going to last any longer than the others? Just let it go, Leandra. It's not important.'

Leandra's hand clenches around the handle of her knife. Garrett thinks about his father's remembered clumsiness -- broad and strong and an utterly unhandscrafty mage, closer to Carver's brute strength than any of Garrett's deftness. Garrett knows from whom his dexterity comes.

'Serah Fenris,' Leandra begins.

'Serah Fenris,' Bodahn announces, from the door, with a distant, happy lyrium ghosting from Sandal in the main hall to make Garrett wince.

Then Fenris is there, absent his more spiky bits of armour and in a formal coat Garrett has never seen before, high of collar and ending heavily just above the knee. He holds a bottle of wine with the butt cupped in his palm, length measured along his forearm, not quite meeting anyone's eyes.

'I thought--'

You fled.

'To get wine,' Fenris tries, strangled. 'As you asked. I apologise again, I have interrupted.'

'Not at all,' Leandra almost shouts. 'It was my mistake. We can make room. Do sit. Bodahn--'

You came.

Gamlen is the only one who does not shuffle to make a space. 'I was just saying, elf, you've got no eye for dogflesh.'

Fenris looks around before sitting, selfconscious, between Leandra and Garrett. Then meets Gamlen's eye of all present. 'Irrespective, I shall not forget the fourteen silvers remaining.'

'Sodding elves! You'd make more dusting off your heels.'

'Perhaps you might ask your wealthy nephew for a loan, if you lack even a bare and dirty fourteen silvers.'

'Over my dead body, elf--'

Fenris looks considering, and dangerous. 'I could be tempted to oblige, Amell.'

'It's...uh...just their way of jesting, Mother. You can stop looking so horrified.'

'Joke,' Gamlen is outraged. 'This is not a joke.'

Fenris agrees: 'Rather, it is fourteen silvers.'

Leandra continues to look horrified at the casual death threats exchanged, but there is something.... Something about her that says she is playing into the expectation this time, playing, not feeling it. When Fenris pours the wine, giving a customary spiel about the origin, vintage, the made-from-the-blood-and-tears-of-slaves spiel, Leandra similarly looks appropriately horrified, sips, compliments Fenris' selection with mindless praise (always too oppressively sweet, Garrett finds and criticises, which Fenris rolls his eyes and otherwise ignores). Fenris nods approvingly at Leandra's praise, as if he is the master approving the words of his lackey, returns to his seat and to casually insulting Gamlen.

Leandra looks at Garrett, and there is a shift, subtle but true: a vast, irrepressible, roguish compassion, rarely seen, buried under far too much expectation.

Garrett lets the warming wine wash through him. Fenris folds his legs beneath the table, and Garrett can reach to card his hand over a narrow shin where no one can see; Fenris does not stop him, and Garrett basks in the glow.

* * *

Hawke's bed is a place of disturbing thresholds crossed. The frame is a restored original, recovered from the filthy use for flesh the slavers had put it to; Fenris was there for that, cutting free the bound and used women, more dead than alive. Times are he looks into the canopy and sees himself bound similarly, but it is only the promise of a ghost, nothing real any longer, nothing Tevinter.

Reality is rarely a balm for what might be. Fenris finds a constant discomfort to force himself to come through those posts, boundaries on all four sides, to join Hawke within.

The mattress is new, though, but too comfortable. Comfort in itself another threshold crossed. Comfort is a thing of magisters, and affection, what those with the freedom to be generous can offer to those who are without. When Fenris has had the choice, he always chooses the harder path, away from comfort. He is weak, he thinks, to soften even momentarily; he fears what will come if this comfort is taken from him again. Nothing so powerful as loss of Hawke or love or passion. Simply the loss of a comfortable bed, and he fears, knows, he might break.

Yet he comes, here, where the mattress devours him with false promises, where the sheets smell cleanly of lavender and the quilt is a weight to warm without stifling. Against the voice which chants at him all night, weak, weak, frail, vulnerable, the memory of this will not solace you when chained to stone, he commits a war of silence and sleeps.

Now this threshold crossed, to remain dozing in that same bed, as the sun bares itself shy and plaintive through the window. Fenris wakes into warmth and comfort and light, and thinks this was the first night I stayed.

He is hung over. Inches over the edge of the bed to void himself disastrously into the pot Hawke put for him there, lightweight elf pretends not to be drunk, we all know how this ends. Where one bottle became four for no good reason but that Hawke kept ordering more be brought from the cellar; Hawke became ridiculous, Leandra retreated to bed and Gamlen, old man, was carried between Fenris and Hawke and consigned snoring to a chaise in a reading room. Then they poised at the door again, in fragments of emotion and verbiage that drunkenness somehow preserves, Hawke clinging to walls and frames and statues along the way, crawling up the stairs, the streets are dangerous and you have no armour and the coat fits you so well. Eventually, when Fenris merely laughs, stay, please, stay, I'll suck you til you pass out. Fenris managing even then, whatever will your mother say.

Selective hearing has always pleased Fenris to exercise. Long bouts of ignoring Hawke simply because he wishes to, on the battlefield or otherwise, when the irritation at all this excess complexity grows too great and he cannot take more. For whatever reason -- Hawke has never been ignored before, Fenris tells himself -- Hawke decided Fenris has poor hearing.

Except it had been Fenris who heard the door to the library crack yesterday, sighted over Hawke's bent back, Leandra's paling face before she retreated. He could not hear any anger or tears after she fled, for even elven ears are not preternatural, but he suspected. In Tevinter, he would have known without a doubt. A Tevinter woman had even less standing than any in Kirkwall, in Ferelden, he suspects; certainly much less than any in Orlais, where women rule both Chantry and country and Andraste is sacrosanct, not the butchered bitch of a rebel she was in Tevinter. Their weapons are the same as those of indulged slaves, codified into more privileged behaviour: extravagant shrieking and keening, a vast loud mourning for her son's deviance in failing to breed, failing to marry, failing to obey; wailing and running through the streets, an artful rending of clothes in codified despair. The louder the bitch howled, the higher in standing they were; in their own houses especially, against their own slaves, an indulged domina would not have been so reserved as Leandra.

Instead this is Kirkwall, confusing and problematic; Hawke himself a Ferelden, another set of cultural codes to unravel. Fenris has known only Tevinter, and at times attempting to think other than Tevinter is exhausting enough.

So he succumbs to the clearly articulated comment, stay. He states his claim. Hears one in return. Cannot argue with the words, please stay, even if he cannot unravel the intent. The bed is comfortable, the thick wood frame absent of rope or chain, only memory. The pot even has a cover to distance himself from the evidence of his excesses; Hawke has left a herbal on the beside table, for Fenris to sip and spit and clear his mouth, and send him to peaceful sleep.

Because Hawke is not in the room. If Fenris stretches his hearing, he thinks he can pick out the sounds from the bedroom's antechamber. Hawke and his beloved collection of blades, honing, then polishing, large hands oddly feminine in their deftness...

Fenris drifts, and wakes again to the sound of the antechamber's door opening.

'May we share words?'

'Certainly, mother,' and Fenris knows, Leandra does not know he asked me to stay.

Immediately he wishes himself gone. He does not like being talked about, hearing it, even less.

'I can see from the look on your face,' Hawke, a typical leap into the dark. 'So he drinks, gambles, associates with criminals and fools -- also apostates, as much as he'd hate to admit that, and that is probably all my fault -- has also been known to partake in a cigar or three. Addicted to stamina potions and excessive rhetoric. Frequently mindless cursing in foreign tongues. Has anger issues. A mercenary, but not, Mother, an assassin: willing and capable of killing others if that's what the task requires, but the killing is always incidental to the task. Protect the caravan, guard the door, move the shipment, make up numbers in a private militia so possibly the neighbour's private militia will bugger off. Bolster the number of the guard when taking down an illegal den. If the lifestyle doesn't kill him, I admit, the stamina potions will.'

Fenris snorts, pained disagreement. The magister will kill him long before stamina potions. Or the lyrium will destroy him. When the dementia and the terror grows too great, he will die, as he occasionally dreams, from Hawke's favoured dagger kissing across his throat.

'I do not question Serah Fenris' quality of character or his motivation. Both are obvious.'

'Really, Mother? You expect me to let that stand?'

Fenris echoes the disbelief. He does not fit into the life of an Amell. Perhaps a hire for specific job. A brief affair of unclean fucking. Fenris writhes beneath the comfortable quilt, aching at the thought, of being used and left. He has no reason to be hard right now, listening in his misery to Hawke and his mother. Perhaps passion is the same thing as fear. Did Lady Leandra ever know, it was Fenris who first hired Hawke? How so very quickly he had lost control of the right to command.

'Rather, I question your motivation.'

'And my quality of character? Well, thank you for your vote of confidence.'

'Do you think me as much a fool as Gamlen? You will not talk to me in this tone of voice, Garrett Hawke.'

'I can only do as I was raised--'

'Please. Stop this game.'

Silence.

Then Garrett unravels like a hem. 'This is not a game. You think I don't know what it means to be an Amell? That I sabotage my potential to rise by living like this? That there will be no noble wife and no noble alliance forged in marriage and no noble babies to carry on the line? Do you think me the fool, Mother? I grovelled through Lowtown's filth and Darktown's shit running errands for half these so-called nobles just to be considered one of them; do you not see the irony? Perhaps this is not enough for you, but if I have to lose the choice of who shares my bed then I don't know what the point of all this privilege was.'

'Once I thought the same, when your father asked me to leave with him. Now Bethany is dead--'

'Bethany is dead, so is Carver, la di da. I am alive. I could be Viscount, you think? I say I will enjoy the fruits of my labour in the position I wish to enjoy them, in my bed, not on a throne. I am prepared for any consequence of my choices.'

Fenris wishes to drown himself in linen. They have had this conversation before, but without the edge to Hawke's voice, half-jesting, as they do; Fenris, suggesting Hawke takes his mother's offer of a Hightown wife. Why not? The use of elven lovers off the side is laughed at in Kirkwall, even by the elven lovers if the prostitutes' raucous sharing of Bran's hopeless infatuation is any measure. In Tevinter it is less strange. Fenris knows better than Hawke: marriage is a trade negotiation. Marriage in Tevinter, an extremely formal affair, magisters trading sons and daughters to breed even more powerful magister grandchildren to become allies and defenders. Not even a mabari's pedigree has been monitored and measured so closely. Judging from Kirkwall's inverse desires, Leandra would need to be as studied and careful in finding her son a wife with no trace of magic in her line, at least five generations back, to be sure another mage would not come of their union.

Fenris is not so proud as to protest freely becoming, in the colloquial, a bit on the side.

Could have fooled me, Hawke had said.

Leandra does not bow before Garrett's wrath. 'If you leave him, you will destroy him. Are you prepared for that?'

The words are as much a backstab as Fenris has ever felt.

'What do you---'

'He lives for you, Garrett. He has nothing, but you. And I--- have been in that position before, dependent on the life of another. Certainly there were choices, I could have birthed you and left you with a Chantry; I could have left Malcolm to the Templars and resumed position with my family. There are always choices, but not necessarily the ones we wish we had, the ones which let us continue to act the way we wish we could act. Perhaps, if I had been older or more mature, I would have seen other choices back then. As it was, I can only hope you listen: a relationship based on fear will break his heart.'

Fenris aches, full body. Throbs. As if thundered with too many stamina potions.

Hawke laughs, 'I'm not afraid of Fenris, mother.'

You should be, Fenris thinks, and I am afraid of you. He clenches his fists.

'Well,' Leandra says, bolstering for brightness. 'If you won't do the necessary, that leaves me to court a second husband. I can't say I'm not looking forward to it. It's been a long time since I've enjoyed Hightown's entertainments.'

'I certainly wish you luck. Just...give me ample warning if a new brother or sister is along the way.'

There are more words exchanged, the rustle of fabric as mother and son embrace. Fenris hears but does not find meaning. Buried and shaking by the time Hawke comes to the bed. Anger and humiliation, disgust at having been so open a near-stranger could read him; he hates Leandra, then he pities her, then he admires her, all without having said more than a handful of words to her; he fears Hawke and what Hawke would do to him, if there is no Hawke; this is another threshold, one he did not know existed to be crossed. The consequences would be severe. It could not break him more than if Hawke would return him to Danarius.

Does Hawke own me, then, to be able to return me?

'There can be no gain in this,' Fenris croaks, when Hawke slides his hands beneath the sheets, finds his back and strokes.

'Are you so sotted your rag is still soggy?'

Flashes of humiliation, again, of the night before, Hawke's wetlipped promises and the wine defeating all of them. Why did he let Hawke see him so weak?

'Not that,' Fenris says, as Hawke's hand slides to his front.

'No,' Hawke notes, cupping him, stroking, vague admiring tones. 'So I note. So what is this for, then? Were you dreaming of me?'

Yes, always. 'No. I do not know.'

Something in his voice had Hawke's hand slow, the body curled firm behind him. Attempt to clasp Hawke's wrist and pull him free was subverted, Hawke lacing his fingers through Fenris' own, paired hands stroking. He is too tired, past drunk, too exposed to raise the barriers that would let him end this with a thought-quelled erection.

'What, then?'

'Your mother--'

'Hnnn. I don't know how she twigged to it in the end, but that turned out better than I expected. No recriminations about grandchildren. No more sneaking out during the night for illicit assignations. You should move in.'

'No,' a bark, which Fenris would return to his mouth if he could; Hawke is in his high, happy phase, Hawke, of rises and falls of emotion faster than his blades. Fenris fears the fall. He fears the delight of the high. He fears everything about this man.

Hawke bites his shoulder in gentle retaliation. 'You could make all the noise you wanted.'

'No,' Fenris whispers. He closes his eyes. The hand is too skilled. Knows me too well. That, too, is a matter for fear.

'No? Ah... I could stuff your throat full instead, if you like. No noise that way. It's only fair after you were stuffing me yesterday--'

Fenris latches onto the offer, a rope in a storm. Grounds himself. This is expected. This is usual. This is not wine and mothers and fears. This is bedframes for tying slaves to and using them, rules clearly delineated and expectations of hurt and pain in total alignment: except with comforts offered by those generous enough the offering does not hurt them. Even in a generous master's bed, there are rules.

'Yes.'

Fenris can feel when Hawke's breath catches, changes. The movement is swift, Hawke throwing back the quilt. The eyes darkening at sight of him, houserobe stripped and crumpled. Hawke pins him, knees by his shoulders, prick filling his vision.

'Like this?'

Fenris only opens in response. The angle awkward and insufficient, and Hawke will hurt him, eager as a youth thrusting about having never felt the return, the softness of a throat meaning only pleasure to him, as if the lover is invulnerable. A lovely fantasy. Hawke's weight is full on Fenris' chest, crushing lungs which struggle, the air and access insufficient. Fenris grips the flexing buttocks and pulls him in closer, harder, adding the strength of his own arms to the thrusts. He does not dislodge or ease Hawke's weight. He gags, tastes the sickness of too much sour wine recoiling, sucks desperately that Hawke's taste smothers all else. He wishes Hawke's hands were on his throat, does not know how to do that without raising alarm, and tries to make the crushing weight of him suffice.

'Maker, but I want your cock in me badly,' Hawke is panting, shining with sweat and the stink of alcohol in his skin, fingers grappling behind until he connects with Fenris there, tugging awkwardly. 'But I don't want you to stop!'

Rip it off, Fenris thinks, for no reason. The violence of the thought and accompanying image makes him cry out, a full body flinch in imagined shock and pain, mouth and throat too full for pure sound.

'Yes,' Hawke cries, as well. He pulls away with some effort, stands. The reversal confuses Fenris for a moment, along with the unexpected return of air. He heaves and gasps, swallows raw; and Hawke waits for him, now his knees by Fenris' ears, head resting against Fenris' thigh. Waits, cock hanging heavy over Fenris' mouth, until Fenris gathers enough breath to pull Hawke's hips down to him, takes him against his tongue and suckles like a pup, writhing in desperation. Only then does Hawke swallow him as well.

Fenris has not done this, simultaneous manner -- or has he? He has no memories sufficient for this. He does not think he has. Even when Tevinters fuck, when they like to watch their slaves fucking, they do not touch to excess. This way, Hawke is on him, all along him, chest to belly and belly to chest, nose shoving into Fenris' balls, hands lifting and spreading Fenris' thighs from beneath. His hips drop and writhe, and the angle is perfect, length inexorably inwards and all Fenris has to do is tilt his chin upwards and open wide.

But the compelling pressure at his groin is overwhelming, nothing he can concentrate on, tacitly, his building orgasm nothing he can control when he is too busy surrendering control of his own mouth; he cannot take Hawke this deep in his throat if he must also control himself down there, the mere thought of restriction making his throat clamp, painfully. He wishes, for a moment --

Of something. Just out of reach. Yearning. He cannot breathe.

There is much Fenris cannot do. Breathing is the least of them. He floats, and Hawke slides his full length in and out of his throat smoothly, hips rising and falling. Fenris cannot think, cannot move, he is warm and comfortable and filled. Wet. Hawke moans around him, constantly, the slide of flesh speeding. Warm and wet, always warm. Fenris does not know why he comes, does not feel it building until he loses everything, the pressure in his throat immense when he cries out, smothered.

Only to crash as Hawke pulls away, out of him, the surreal bubble bursting. No. No, stay in me...

'You need to breathe,' Hawke says, mystified. Then bends again, easily, suckling over-sensitive prick clean while Fenris tries to silence his moans from a mouth which will not close, creaking lungs whose desperation he cannot control. Hawke crawls to the head of the bed and kneels beside him, erection jutting like a promise, stroking his hair.

'No,' Hawke laughs, when Fenris tries to suck him again. 'Keep breathing, just stay open. I want to feed it to you.'

He jerks himself, deft wrist, hips tilted to show himself off, gleaming, impossible body dazzling Fenris with the sheen of strong, young muscle. A few moments, then Hawke's belly clenches, he spills into Fenris' mouth, the first burst striking like a lash. Hard not to recoil, hard not to reject. Fenris opens his mouth wider.

Hawke kisses him, groaning. Fenris cannot kiss back. This was the bed of your grandparents. No bastard Amells born from it this day.

'That was so good. Why is it always so good with you?'

'I did nothing.' Fenris' throat closes before he can manage more.

Hawke's incredulous look. 'That was not nothing. Unless you're trying to be prideful? "Wait until I really blow you?" Oh, Maker, you do intend to kill me.'

Never.

Hawke strokes his flank, gentling hands. Contradictorily, it irritates Fenris, oversensitive everywhere, sufficient to make him stroke Hawke in return, a polite method of shrugging off the palms. Hawke leans into the affection--

As if starved.

Fenris' palms still. His straining heart skips again, then pushes, diligent mechanism of his continued existence.

Fenris strokes along Hawke's flank and watches the skin respond to him, the body yearn for him in return.

He thinks of being destroyed, of Hawke destroying him; wonders at the pain of Leandra's broken, betrayed heart. How it would feel.

'I would fight your uncle for fourteen silvers,' Fenris says.

'Because you have no sense of hierarchy of importance.' Sleepily.

'I would fight for you.'

The eyes open, lazy and loved. 'Are you saying I'm worth more or less than fourteen silvers?'

Fenris' worth, as measured by the Chantry standard, is five thousand, four hundred and thirty three sovereigns, approximately the same value as Hawke's Hightown mansion.

'I could not put a price to you,' he says, finally.

'Well,' and Hawke shakes a little, muffled laughter, Fenris assumes. 'Thank you.'


End file.
